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AP and picture alliance sign exclusive distribution deal

A six month old white lion cubs rests during the presentation of the new program in the ring of Circus Krone in Munich, Germany, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013. (AP Photo/dpa, Victoria Bonn-Meuser)German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, watches a performance of carnival dancers during a reception for carnival clubs from all over Germany at the chancellery in Berlin, Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

NEW YORK -- The Associated Press and picture alliance, a subsidiary of German press agency dpa, today announced an exclusive distribution agreement in Germany and Austria.

Under terms of the deal, more than 4 million AP news and archival photos are available to clients in those countries via the portal, www.picture-alliance.com. In addition, AP Images, the commercial photo unit of AP, will distribute dpa’s English-captioned pictures and selected images from the dpa archive at www.apimages.com.

“We’re delighted to be working with dpa’s picture alliance to expand our reach in an important region of the world,” said Fernando Ferre, vice president of AP Images. “We are also very proud to represent dpa’s outstanding collection outside of Germany and Austria. This partnership furthers our mission of being a one-stop shop for all imagery needs to our clients and is among many recent efforts to expand our offerings, one of the largest collections held by a news organization in the world.”

In recent months AP Images has announced agreements with several image companies and renewed its contract with the National Football League to be the exclusive provider of NFL photos for commercial purposes. In addition, AP Images is rolling out a new platform with upgraded e-commerce and search functions to allow customers to more readily capitalize on AP’s vast image offering.

AP distributes some 3,000 photos from around the world every 24 hours and has a strong tradition of excellence in photojournalism, boasting 30 Pulitzer Prizes for photography.

“We are very pleased to distribute this outstanding partner exclusively in Germany and Austria,” said Edith Stier-Thompson, managing director of picture alliance. “AP Images’ high-quality and exceptional photos perfectly complement our contemporary and historical images. Along with the dpa-archive we are able to offer a unique selection of historical content.”

About AP
The Associated Press is the essential global news network, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. Founded in 1846, AP today is the most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world's population sees news from AP. On the Web: www.ap.org.

About dpa
dpa Picture-Alliance GmbH based in Frankfurt/Main is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German Press Agency dpa and as such one of the leading photo agencies in Germany in the fields of image production, documentation and marketing. The agency's content-portal www.picture-alliance.com offers a diverse selection of 24 million highquality images, graphics, illustrations and clips from more than 200 partner agencies around the world. The covered subjects range from daily news to sports, entertainment, business, art, nature, travel, lifestyle, wellness and creative stock material. More than ten million images in the dpa-archive plus the extensive material of their partners document 100 years of world events from all aspects of public life. Furthermore picture alliance is the official media and photo partner of the German Sports Aid Foundation and the German Olympic Sports Federation (DOSB).